Teen poet's award-winning work shows depth, raw emotion

Sunday

Nov 25, 2012 at 3:00 AM

Beth Caudle wipes away a tear and smiles. At Caudle’s request, one of her students, Shanita Jackson, has just given a reporter an impassioned performance of a poem she wrote about her grandmother’s battle with breast cancer, and a proud Caudle embraces a catharsis of her own.

By Gary GlancyTimes-News correspondent

Beth Caudle wipes away a tear and smiles. At Caudle’s request, one of her students, Shanita Jackson, has just given a reporter an impassioned performance of a poem she wrote about her grandmother’s battle with breast cancer, and a proud Caudle embraces a catharsis of her own.“When Shanita presents, it’s always an amazing experience,” said Caudle, principal of Henderson County Early College High School on the campus of Blue Ridge Community College. “You can’t describe it. To get the depth of where everything comes from her, you have to see it.”Thousands already have, whether it’s at school assemblies, regional poetry slams or in front of a sold-out Fox Theater in Oakland, Calif., where the Hendersonville teen performed during this year’s Brave New Voices, the largest international youth poetry festival in the world.Jackson, who turned 16 on Saturday, has written dozens of poems and she performs them – all by memory – with the intensity and artistry of a theater actress. Often edgy, sometimes controversial and always from the heart, Jackson’s work touches on subjects ranging from a schoolmate’s suicide to racism to her estranged biological father.Jackson admits she gets nervous at the beginning of her performances, but that is quickly replaced by a desire to make her audience feel the power of her message.“You know that you’re sharing something so personal with other people, and they’re willing to listen, so I feel obligated to perform well and to try to allow them to feel what I felt when I wrote it,” Jackson said. “I’ve heard people say that it’s kind of like you’re putting your soul out on a platter, and that’s what it feels like, honestly, especially when it comes from a deep place.”

Subhead

Jackson said her family grew up in a rough neighborhood in Asheville, and her single mother, Lotto Jackson Brown, moved Shanita and her two siblings out of the area after someone was stabbed to death at a residence across the street. They moved in with Shanita’s grandmother in Fletcher before eventually settling in Hendersonville about five years ago.As a seventh-grader at Hendersonville Middle School, Jackson said she procrastinated on a poetry assignment and wound up writing one in the middle of the night before it was due. Better late than never, though, as Jackson’s poem was a prelude of things to come – she could barely finish reading it aloud, Jackson recalled, because she was crying, and so was everyone else in the class.“That’s when I realized that, ‘OK, this is a way to get out everything you’ve been holding in,’ and a way to impact others,” Jackson said. “It was just amazing.”That experience got the ball rolling, and Jackson went on to compete in school and local poetry slam competitions, and later got to meet her idol, acclaimed black performance poet Glenis Redmond. At Early College High, Jackson began inspiring her classmates by performing her poetry during school assemblies – and privately for friends by request. In February, as part of her community service requirements at school, Jackson organized a regional poetry slam at BRCC, and that’s where she met Steve Shell, who teaches at-risk children at Eliada Homes in Asheville and coaches the Asheville Brave New Voices team. Jackson made a big first impression.“Even in meeting her I had no idea how old she was,” Shell said, “because she just presents herself as so far beyond her years.”After placing at the regional Wordslam competition, Jackson earned herself a spot on the Brave New Voices team that traveled to San Francisco this summer for the annual festival and competition – a thrill for Hendersonville’s only representative. In just its first year, the Asheville team barely missed making the semifinals, according to Shell, and Jackson was a big reason.Working on team pieces with other poets, Jackson helped create what Shell called “two of the most powerful pieces, I think, that were performed all week long.” One was about a U.S. soldier, Robert Bales, accused in March of gunning down 16 Afghan civilians – a “chilling piece,” Shell said, that argued the military neglects soldiers suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. The other, called “Gay Is the New Black,” is a heated debate between Jackson and her openly gay teammate about whether blacks or gays have been discriminated against more, with each girl realizing in the end the similarities of the two groups’ historical struggles.The piece created such a buzz and stir among coaches and poets, Shell recalled, that the girls were selected to perform it as the featured exhibition during the Brave New Voices finals in front of 3,000 people at Fox Theater in Oakland.

Subhead

The bold subject matter in many of Jackson’s poems, however, does veer from the traditional views held by her mother.“It’s an interesting dichotomy; she comes from this really conservative Christian home, and she’s this burgeoning, very progressive, very open-minded young lady who is coming into her own,” Shell said.Still, Jackson’s mother continues to be the teen’s greatest influence and inspiration not only in her work, but in her life.According to Caudle, Jackson is the kind of model student for which Early College High School was designed. Now in its fourth year, the school offers a five-year program during which students earn their high school diploma with the possibility of earning an associate’s degree to transfer to a four-year college or university. Caudle said it targets the type of youth under-represented at those four-year schools, such as those from low-income families and those whose parents have a limited educational background – the type of challenges that motivate Jackson and prompted her to attend Caudle’s school by choice rather than parental mandate.Jackson said that because her mother was a high school dropout, she has raised her three children to strive to reach higher than she did and avoid the pitfalls of poverty.“Her dream came true last year,” Jackson said, “when my sister (Shaniqua Foster) walked across the stage (at Hendersonville High) because that’s something that she didn’t get to do, and my brother (Desean Jackson) graduates this year, and our goal is to go to college and graduate and to be successful. And, honestly, I just do it to make her proud, but I do know that I want my children to have a better life than I have, and my life hasn’t been the worst but it could be better, and that’s what drives me every day. That’s why I came here (to Early College High).” Shell said Jackson has had it rougher than many of the children he works with at Eliada Homes, but she refuses to use it as an excuse or let it slow her down.“Shanita literally had almost every card that you could possibly stack against her, from the role of her biological dad in her life and the nature of poverty that she’s overcome to the struggle of who she is versus who her mom would want her to be,” he said. “She has every reason in the world to fail and write it off as, ‘Hey, look at the hand I was dealt,’ and Shanita is just sort of like, ‘This is what I’ve dealt with, this is what I’ve got, here’s the strength I have and this is what I want to be and am going to be.’”Consequently, Jackson – an honors student – serves as a role model at Early College High and a shining star with regard to the school’s curriculum. According Caudle, education models are focused so much on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and students like Jackson serve as a reminder of the importance of “the A for arts.”“I like to tell people we are a STEAM school, not a STEM school,” Caudle said, “because we cannot forget how the arts really do complement the other areas, and that’s really how you communicate those other areas to people is through the arts. So we’re looking for a balance here, and Shanita helps with that. Other students look to her for guidance, and she never says no; she always has time, she’s very gracious and she’s a great mentor. She is a real important part of our school.”